Generally, a clothes treating apparatus having a drying function, such as a washing machine or a clothes dryer, serves to dry laundry having been completely washed and dehydrated, by introducing the laundry into a drum, by supplying hot blast into the drum, and then by evaporating moisture from the laundry.
Hereinafter, the clothes treating apparatus will be explained with taking a clothes dryer as an example. The clothes dryer includes a drum rotatably installed in a body and having laundry introduced thereinto, a driving motor configured to drive the drum, a blowing fan configured to blow air into the drum, and a heating means configured to heat air introduced into the drum. The heating means may use high-temperature electric resistance heat generated from an electric resistance, or combustion heat generated from gas combustion.
Air exhausted from the drum is in a state of a high temperature and a high humidity due to moisture of the laundry inside the drum. According to a method for processing the air of a high temperature and a high humidity, the clothes dryer may be classified into a condensation type (circulation type) and an exhaustion type. The condensation type clothes dryer is configured to condense moisture included in the air of a high temperature and a high humidity, by circulating and cooling the air into a temperature less than a dew point through a condenser, without exhausting the air to the outside. And, the exhaustion type clothes dryer is configured to directly exhaust the high temperature-high humidity air having passed through the drum to the outside.
In the case of the condensation type clothes dryer, the air has to be cooled into a temperature less than a dew point so as to condense the air exhausted from the drum. And, the air has to be heated by the heating means before being re-supplied into the drum. Here, the air may have the loss of its thermal energy while being cooled. In order to heat the air to a temperature high enough to perform a drying operation, required is an additional heater, etc.
In the case of the exhaustion type clothes dryer, it is also required to exhaust the air of a high temperature and a high humidity to the outside, to introduce external air of a high temperature, and to heat the external air into a desired temperature by the heating means. Especially, high-temperature air exhausted to the outside includes thermal energy transmitted by the heating means. However, the thermal energy is exhausted to the outside, resulting in lowering of the thermal efficiency.
In order to overcome these problems, being proposed is a clothes treating apparatus capable of enhancing the energy efficiency by recovering energy required to generate hot blast, and energy exhausted to the outside without being used. As one example of the clothes treating apparatus, a clothes treating apparatus having a heat pump system is being recently introduced. The heat pump system is provided with two heat exchangers, a compressor and an expander, and enhances the energy efficiency by recovering energy of exhausted hot blast and by re-using the energy to heat air supplied into the drum.
More concretely, the heat pump system is provided with an evaporator at an exhaustion side, and with a condenser at a suction side near the drum. And, the heat pump system transmits thermal energy to a refrigerant through the evaporator, and transmits thermal energy of the refrigerant to air introduced into the drum through the condenser, thereby generating hot blast with using abandoned energy. Here, the heat pump system may further include a heater configured to re-heat air heated while passing through the condenser.
In order for the heat pump system of the clothes dryer to stably operate, heat exchange has to be smoothly performed at the evaporator and the condenser. In the conventional art, air circulates the inside of the clothes dryer by the operation of a main fan disposed below the drum. However, in case of adopting a heat pump system, an auxiliary fan for supplying air to the condenser is separately installed from the main fan so as to accelerate heat exchange of the condenser.
If heat exchange is not smoothly performed at the condenser due to an abnormal state of the auxiliary fan, a refrigerant is overheated to lower the reliability of the product. Furthermore, the amount of power consumption by the compressor is increased due to an overload applied to the compressor. This may lower the energy efficiency. Therefore, whether the auxiliary fan normally operates or not has to be continuously checked while the clothes dryer operates. However, this is difficult since a user cannot easily access to a position where the auxiliary fan is installed, and cannot easily check with his or her naked eyes. More concretely, air flow continues in a state that the main fan is in a steady state and the auxiliary fan is in an abnormal state. This may cause a user to have a difficulty in checking an abnormal state of the auxiliary fan from the outside.